GRANITE FALLS — A Granite Falls man said he began blasting away with a shotgun because he wanted to protect his home.

Police aren’t buying the story. They say he was drunk.

The suspect, 55, said he fired a round into the air Tuesday afternoon to scare off two people who had stopped by his home. He wanted to be left alone, a Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy wrote in a report filed in court Wednesday.

The man was “noticeably intoxicated,” the deputy noted. His blood-alcohol level later tested at more than double the legal limit.

When deputies told the man that he was going to be arrested, the suspect said he was acting in self-defense because the men were going to beat him up, court papers said.

He didn’t call 911 and fired multiple rounds from his shotgun, deputies wrote.

When deputies arrived at the man’s trailer in the 31000 block of the Mountain Loop Highway, they attempted to contact him but there was no response. A search warrant was prepared and signed by a judge. Deputies then forced open the door and found the suspect asleep in a bedroom.

On Wednesday, he was being held at the county jail in Everett on $10,000 bail.